Poverty, hunger and food.

All of the following is purely my opinion.

There seems to be a large proportion of parents who have little or no ability to cook nourishing and economical meals.
In poorer areas fast food takeaways seem to flourish. Sales of convenience and processed foods are high.
Maybe it's the fault of our generation who failed to teach the young how to cook.
I understand that families with both parents working left little time for family life as we knew it.

My thoughts are why, among the plethora of cookery programs, are none devoted to basic, simple economic meals?
James Martin and the like concentrate on chef type meals with ingredients that are not likely to be found in the average kitchen.
Why not have programs showing how to make nourishing and economical meals from cheap ingredients? I am particularly thinking of cooks like Zena Skinner.
Or am I totally mistaken?

Re: Poverty, hunger and food.

Well, Jack Monroe (female chef) has a website called cooking on a bootstrap and she does a lot of basic, cheap and nourishing meals. I am not a fan of hers because she whinges on about how famous she should be by now, but that's beside the point. I'm sure there are others who do budget healthy meals, instead of these high falutin' multi ingredient meals that take hours to prepare.

Re: Poverty, hunger and food.

Re: Poverty, hunger and food.

Not mistaken, but a couple of generations have gone without cookery lessons at school so have no idea how to cook.( or the inclination)
ready meals can be bought for 4 people for £5 a day , not healthy at all but cheap and filling and usually something that they wouldn’t begin to know how to cook themselves.
Would anyone who can’t cook and can buy cheap food, even bother to watch a programme about basic cooking? I doubt it.
Sadly nourishing food seems to be way down on the priorities list for some.
I spent a full day at my secondary school in cooking lessons, I then taught my daughters how to cook because they weren’t given any lessons at school, my daughter is now teaching her daughter to cook, but it’s a struggle. I think the only way back is for compulsory cookery lessons at school, then there is no escape and they might learn something!

Re: Poverty, hunger and food.

Why bother cooking when it's quite often much easier to just eat?

Re: Poverty, hunger and food.

I remember coming across a young mother with her toddler, desperately scanning the shelves for something - I asked her what she was looking for so I could help her, and she said 'pancake mix'. There was none to be had, because guess what? It was Shrove Tuesday. Not having any pencil and paper with me, I said 'get out your phone, and go to 'notes', and write this down'. I dictated the basics of making a pancake batter. She could not believe how easy it sounded, how few ingredients. She was so grateful! I said, laughingly, 'please promise me you'll never buy a packet of pancake mix again'. I've often wondered whether she kept the promise

Re: Poverty, hunger and food.

I think you've hit the nail on the head Daisy!
No cooking lessons are to blame!!
Why were they stopped l wonder?
Probably some WOKE agenda ??

Donkeyman! 🤔🤔

Re: Poverty, hunger and food.

I used to enjoy the cooking lessons at school, it was one of the lessons you didn't have to sit at your desk and quietly do whatever. You were in pairs (usually) and a lot of chatting was done back n forth. The Homecraft Teachers were nice and made the lessons interesting. My daughter used to enjoy them as well when she was at school.
Really stupid idea to stop them.

Re: Poverty, hunger and food.

I agree completely Tregonsee it is something I am always banging on about. I could feed a large family and fill their tummies for very little cash with some breast of lamb, vegetables and pearl barley.

It is such a shame domestic science is no longer compulsory on the school curriculum . I learnt to cook anything and everything at school .
I taught my son to cook when he was little , he now shares the cooking from scratch for a family of 7.

I have also taught my grandchildren to cook , this is one of them with the cookies she made all by herself age 6.

Re: Poverty, hunger and food.

I don't remember anybody teaching me how to cook, but my mum had always prepared a hot dinner for when we came home. When I got my own home I reproduced things my mum had made and adjusted them to suit my tastes.
I do think home cooked food is disappearing because people are becoming too lazy to prepare it & if you feed your children takeaways that is what they will want to eat.
The best wedding present for any young couple would be a couple of simple cookery books & a challenge to make as many of the meals as they can.
All good cooks stem from making food they enjoy, prepared by their own hand. They just need to learn that cooking a meal for the family should be a joy not a chore..... and it doesn't need to be expensive!